Self care for people with demanding schedules/busy lives

[Peppermintbach]

Hi all,

I thought that it might be helpful to have a thread to share self care strategies especially for those of us who often feel time-poor with demanding schedules/busy lives.

I understand everyone is different, and like most things in life, self care also needs to be individualised to suit each of our individual needs, interests, personalities and lifestyles.

I’ll be back later to contribute my own ideas...

Please feel free to share your own self care strategies and suggestions 🙂

Kind thoughts,

Pepper

[Birdy77]

Dear Pepper and hello everyone 😊

I just saw this and thought of this thread: (sorry, it's just a quote)

"if you do not make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness." #readthatagain

I hope you are all making a little bit of time for your wellness. You're worth it.

🌻birdy

[Peppermintbach]

I lovely birdy & a wave to all,

Thank you so much for the quote.

I think it’s very helpful and relevant to this thread. Your contributions are always appreciated 🙂 xoxox

While I’m here, I wanted to add something about social self-care:

• Friendships: For some of us (I’m most definitely including me), investing time in meaningful friendships makes a huge difference. Even when I was in relationships in the past, I still deliberately set aside time for friends (and family) most weeks 🙂
• Optimal socialising time: This will vary a lot for each person, but maybe figure out what is the optimal amount of socialising for you as an individual. For example, ideally I like to see my friends 2-4 times each week, unless it’s a particularly busy/stressful period. Obviously some people will prefer to see their friends more/less than me, depending on their mood, degrees of extroversion/introversion, etc. I suppose it’s about finding what works for you personally 🙂
• Meaningful connections: I think it’s also about finding the connections that you need. Some people are happy to share an activity with others, some people want more emotional support, some people are looking for similar interests, etc, etc. Again, I feel it’s about finding what you need and being able to offer something in return that they need 🙂
• Reciprocity- I think it helps if friendships are two-sided. I think if they’re very one-sided, it can lead to potential resentments/conflict in the long-run. The old adage of “give and take”...

Thank you for reading 🙂

[Quercus]

Hi all,

I'm thankful for this thread Pepper. Have returned at times lately for more ideas to try. I'm burnt out.

One thing that helps me isn't mentioned yet. Figured I'd share even if it feels a bit ridiculous. Sleep. I don't care at the moment if I stop the car kids and all and take a 10 min nap. Life can just bloody wait. Everyone and everything can just wait.

Thank you again.

[Peppermintbach]

Hi all,

Quercus: You’re clearly feeling very run down. I feel burnout is very rough...it takes a lot out of a person, and you’re clearing feeling the emotional toll. I feel for your struggle and the pressures that you must be under...

I completely agree with you about the importance of sleep. It affects pretty much every aspect of our life. Both our emotional and physical well-being.

Thank you so much for the important reminder 🙂

Here’s another idea for everyone:

Emotional acceptance as a form of long-term self care:

I know this next one might sound a bit odd, but I think there’s something to be said about emotional acceptance or learning to sit with really difficult feelings. I understand sometimes life gets in the way with responsibilities, commitments, fear of difficult emotions, etc.

But if possible, I think there’s value in learning how to accept unpleasant emotions. I don’t mean to give in to them and I’m not suggesting that we should constantly fixate on painful emotions either.

But to simply allow ourselves to experience/feel unpleasant emotions when they arise, because part of being human is feeling a range orf emotions: both pleasant and unpleasant ones...

There’s a famous line by a psychiatrist (or was it a psychologist?) who once challenged their client with something like (not necessarily verbatim):

If you hear something funny, you laugh. So it stands to reason if something sad happens, you cry.

I mean, distractions and things like that have its place, and I know it is important in its own right. But I think if there are latent emotions that we constantly try to ignore or suppress, the reality is those difficult feelings haven’t actually gone away. It’s all just simmering quietly beneath the surface...

Granted, I think emotional acceptance is probably one of the more challenging, confronting and long-term forms of self care that requires a lot of practice. But I think for some people, it really is worthwhile in the long-run...it’s not easy though.

Personal example: As part of my own self care, I try to create set times to sit with my difficult feelings most days. It can even be something short like fifteen minutes on busy days...

During that time, I put away distractions, no chatting with others, etc and just let myself get in touch with my emotions...

Feel it to tame it, is what I personally believe 😉

Thank you for reading....

Kindness and care,

Pepper

[Abbie121]

Hi Pepper and everyone

I've been reading this thread and finding all the tips so helpful and appreciated, thank you. I live alone and sometimes after a hectic, stressful day at work (particularly with managing other people and constantly seeing if they are ok) I come home and feel a little empty and depleted, so really need to prioritise my self-care. I absolutely agree that keeping a clean and tidy home really contributes to a calmer mind, so thank you for that reminder. Other things I try to focus on are having balanced healthy meals, prioritising sleep, a warm shower before bed and doing a short meditation before sleep.. When I crave the comfort of having a partner to lean on at times like this I try to remind myself that I can be my own support and best friend by doing all the above.

Love and kindness to all,

Abbie

x

[Peppermintbach]

Hi lovely people.

Thank you for reading along &/or contributing with your insights or suggestions. You are all appreciated here. Everyone is welcome...

Abbie: what a beautiful post. Thank you so much for sharing some of your experiences with us, & I’m very glad that this thread is giving you some self care ideas & reminders 🙂

Your work sounds as though it is emotionally demanding. Emotional labour can be very draining...I feel for you. I really do.

So I think it’s wonderful that you have been reflecting on how you manage your own self care. All the things you mentioned are excellent self care habits to develop: balanced meals, adequate rest, tidiness & cleanliness, plus grounding through meditation.

Speaking of home environments, I’m trying to declutter the next few months. But I’m doing it very slowly/gradually.

I’m discarding or donating things bit by bit. It all adds up when I through a few items on most days. It’s helping me create a tidier environment.

Thanks for being here, Abbie, and thank you all for reading 🙂

kindness & care,

Pepper

[PhoebeWings]

Hi Abbi,

I read your post and the reminders of how to self care are perfect, especially when we are involved in lives that demand a lot of us, working with the demands of others.

Learning to emotionally lean on myself as a true partner in life has been a long old walk for me.

I can quickly cave into feelings of abandonment and loss, if I don’t keep grounded in the truth.

Thank you for your post.

[PhoebeWings]

Hi Pepper,

I’m re-reading and re-reading again your wise words regarding sitting with emotions, getting in touch with our feelings.

As a young teenager I had to freeze and numb out and never quite recovered.

I’d have short, sharp but terrible periods where I’d either drown in my emotions, pummelled about with grief and inner rage, usually fuelled by alcohol to numb, but we all know where that ends up.

Or I’d be running at high velocity energy levels, bursting with it...distracting, distracting - from the grief that threatened to overtake and finish me off.

I’ve learnt to ‘sit’ with my feelings, well...I’m learning at least.

My main thing is to keep peace and calm and contentment - although I suspect it’s tinged with numbness.

But for now, I’m feeling better and can cope.

Not sure if I’ll ever really recover to normal ( whatever that is) emotions.

More practice is needed I guess 🙂

Thank you for your very helpful posts.

Phoebe.

[Peppermintbach]

Hi wonderful people,

Thank you so much for reading along &/or contributing.

I know that I say that non-stop, but I really am grateful for your suggestions, encouragement & shared personal experiences here 🙂

Phoebe: I felt very moved by both posts. I absolutely loved what you said to Abbie:

Learning to emotionally lean on myself as a true partner in life has been a long old walk for me.

Thank you to you (& lovely Abbie) for the important reminder that, no matter who is/isn’t in our lives, the one person who is guaranteed to be with us 24/7, is ourselves.

So we better take good care of ourselves, right? 😉

Also, I’m glad that my thoughts on sitting with our feelings has struck a chord with you..

It sounds as though you’ve had some harrowing, maybe even traumatic, experiences in your life that you’ve been running from. I really feel for you...

Reading about how you alternated from drowning out your feelings with alcohol to keeping endless busy was poignant. I could feel your pain...In both cases, I felt you were running from something painful ...

In a way, maybe it’s okay too. Maybe you had to run away from your feelings first, because you weren’t yet ready to face them at the time (or didn’t know how or were too frightened).

Sometimes I think we aren’t yet ready, & that’s okay too...

I think you‘re clearly feeling more ready these days.

I think you’re so brave & resilient to try to sit with difficult feelings sometimes. I agree that it is not easy, but I also agree that consistent practise can help reduce our discomfort over time...

Thank you so much for sharing some of your experiences & wisdom with us here.

Kindness & care to all,

Pepper

[PhoebeWings]

Hi Pepper,

Thank you for your caring words.

I think, looking back...sometimes we have no choice but to keep in place the external walls that we’ve built.

I’m deeply aware that I’ve enjoyed a full life, successfully navigating the world, building relationships and life experiences.

But ‘she’ was always in there, the deeply hurt ‘me’.

As we all know, when traumas or ‘harrowing’ experiences happen to us, we may split. Pressing down and numbing part of ourselves whilst keeping ourselves surviving.

Faking it until we make it.

And you know, after a lifetime I find it a new challenge to integrate the hurt me with the ‘OK’ me, that is the safely capable and sometimes reasonably smart ( ha ha 😜) me. The reasoning me.

So, I’m taking it slow. Breathing in the day. Although I’m busy, accomplishing some fairly challenging tasks, I’m not on a hot wire of internal stress.

Like you talked about, I’m checking in on myself, not measuring by what’s happening externally, but how much ‘rest’ I feel inside in the middle of whatever I’m doing.

I’m hoping that when some deep hurt and emotion rises up, I’ll be more aware and prepared... so that I don’t get sucked into despair and whirling pain.

I hope this is relevant to the topic of this thread. Having had a very stress prone career ( which I loved) where I was constantly in performance mode, I can now see how important internal stuff wasn’t properly cared for.